The field of this invention relates to boating, and more particular to the minimizing of the drag of the boat with the water as the boat is operated.
It is well known that the hull of a boat imposes quite a large drag as it is moved through the water. The reason for this is that there is substantial surface area in contact with the water and the greater the surface area, the greater the drag. In the past, there have been substantial efforts at designing hulls having a minimum amount of drag.
Besides designing of low drag type of hulls, there is also the concept of employing hydrofoils. As the boat is operated at a reasonably fast speed, the foils which are located in a spaced distance below the hull of the boat, incur lift to the point that the hull of the craft is supported and rises and travels clear of the water. At low speeds, the hydrofoil craft operates on the conventional displacement hull. By using the hydrofoils, the drag against the hull is eliminated and the only drag is against the hydrofoil units. This means that a less powerful motor can be employed to operate the boat at a fast rate of speed.
There have been a substantial number of hydrofoil type boats built. But these boats are generally of relatively large size, thirty feet or longer. Although a smaller hull, such as a sixteen foot hull hydrofoil boat could be built, in the past there has been very little effort toward the designing of such a boat.
To even go a step further, there is a significant number of small boats in use and if there was some way to design structure which could be attached to the small hull boat and thereby make the small hull type of boat, a hydrofil type boat, such a structure would be of significant value. Such small boats usually employ an outboard motor and a ten or fifteen horsepower motor could operate a hydrofoil type of boat at a speed twice as great as a conventional displacement hull type of boat.